The 3-Year Quest

by Rob Ford, Webmaster
Treecity
15 August 2000

Here I find myself rubbing shoulders, well articles, with some of the most respected people in the awards community. Don't expect any ground breaking advice in this article, just my version of Why? and How? I earned the Superb! Website Award.

How It Started

July 1997 and the WWW entered my home for the first time. Gone were the days when I used to spend hours typing code into my Vic 20 for a Space Invaders style game, only to find that it wouldn't run because of a typing error I would never find.

The wealth of information on the Internet and the amount of free downloads it had to offer simply amazed me. My PC was soon awash with demos and the like. I found out how useful the "Search Engines" were when I typed in my name and received 2.3 million matches. All the information, free downloads and various tools were great, but I really needed more of a purpose for my surfing. Something new, which would captivate me for longer periods of time.

"Get your FREE webspace here!" That was it — my own website. I trawled the many free HTML tutorial sites and found one, which was for a total novice, and downloaded it. Within three weeks I thought I was THE webmaster. Animated gifs, blinking text, hooters sounding, you know the sort of thing.

I emailed the mega long URL I had received for my freespace to my friends and waited for their compliments and recognition. They all seemed to like the idea of having a website, but none of them commented on my new masterpiece. They were only jealous, I convinced myself.

Enter Awards

After a few more months of surfing I came across a site which had won an award. This was something to set a goal for, and I decided that I too deserved one. I headed back to the search engines and typed in "awards." The results gave me all sorts of matches, including an award for deep-sea fishing, but more importantly they gave me a link to Don Chisholm's Website Awards Worksheet.

It was incredible to see this list of hundreds of award sites, all in alphabetical order and all with a rating from NR (not rated — don't be fooled by this description as some of the World's Top Awards are NR) up to 5, with 5 being the highest possible rating by Award Sites!, the recognised standard for rating award programs.

Applying For Awards

I scanned through the list and realised I had to start somewhere, so I decided to start with the Level 5 awards. As I clicked on the links I soon discovered they all had something called "criteria," which was basically a way of letting award seekers know what the requirements were to be eligible for one of their awards. Realising I could hide behind my email address, I thought the only criteria I needed to know about was when could I have my award? So, I ignored everything and headed straight for the application forms, where I filled in the required boxes and then hit the "Submit" button. A piece of cake. All I had to do now was to watch my inbox bulge.

When I reached the bottom of the Worksheet (some people recommend starting at the bottom and working your way to the top, but obviously I did the opposite), I hit the link for the "X-Plosive Web Award." I quickly pressed the necessary buttons, as I was now quite adept at finding the application forms, and submitted my request for their award. My inbox flashed almost immediately and I found to my horror that my application was declined. I had not spent enough time reading their criteria.

Very clever, I thought, and it suddenly dawned on me that maybe I should read just a little bit more at each of the award sites. Maybe I should read the criteria to find out if my site was eligible for their awards. It certainly wouldn't do any harm!

At the start of each new session, I now read through the criteria. But after about an hour I found myself scanning for passwords and heading straight for the application forms. BIG mistake. I'm sure that I annoyed and wasted a lot of people's time by this selfish act, and I sincerely apologise to all of you.

Keeping A Log

I also failed to keep a log of when I applied for each award, so I could never be sure as to what I had actually applied for. Some awards stick out in your mind for one reason or another, and others don't. This makes it difficult to keep track of your applications.

Eventually I received an email to say that I was disqualified from an award program. They had received two applications from me, and my site hadn't changed since the first one. I quickly deleted the message and promptly forgot who sent it. A few weeks later I received another email from them to say that I was disqualified and would I please stop applying. This time I made a note of who it was.

The Superb! Award

I gave my site a complete makeover and thought that now it was good enough for those Level 5 awards. I headed back to the Awards Worksheet. As the page loaded I noticed the "Superb! Website Awards." I hit the link and there it was! The awesome award graphic had me transfixed. My name was written all over it — I had to have this award. "Superb! over 100 awards Website." Now that really says something.

If you're not involved in the awards arena, it is very difficult to appreciate the status of some awards. But one that says 100 — well, the rest is history. There were only a handful of winners, so to achieve it would really put my site up there amongst the best. The only problem was that I had to win 100 awards and one of the World's Top Awards. At that time I had none.

I decided to go for the Level 5's again. Once they had all bestowed their awards upon me, the rest would be easy. Blank inbox, of course.

Enter Reality

As reality hit home I realised my site was not up to the mark. After looking at some of the other sites on the exploding Internet, I began to wonder if I had the capability to design a decent website, let alone an award winning one.

I learned more HTML and then discovered Java, which I thought was incredible. My site received the Java treatment, but it still failed to impress. A friend of mine then told me about an acquaintance who was starting a web design agency and all his sites would be designed using Flash 4. I had previously tried a demo of Flash 3 but was too busy adding Java to my site to actually get to grips with it. I looked at his site and was amazed at what I saw. It had everything I had dreamed of doing on a web site, and it all moved so smoothly. I just couldn't believe what I saw.

So, I decided to start afresh and everything would be Flash. My first attempt, like a first attempt at anything, was pretty average. Well, it was bad, but I was now a Nominee for the "World's Best Websites," which was encouraging. Again I only applied for Level 5 awards, and again I had a blank inbox.

Sweet Success

I deleted my web site and started from scratch again. By now I was convinced that I would never win a single award. I focused all my energy into designing something that was simple but original and tried to make sure it all worked smoothly. There would be no blank screens in between page loads. I would try and keep all pages under 30k until the time comes when bandwidth problems are a thing of the past for everyone. I would make it easy to navigate and pleasing to the eye.

For the first time ever I was actually pleased with what I had achieved. Suddenly I was receiving requests from people to join my mailing list. Maybe, just maybe, I was heading in the right direction. So, yet again, I went back to the Worksheet and Award Sites, but this time I decided to try for the lower rated and "Not Rated" awards.

As I read the criteria for these awards, I began to realise that some of the "Not Rated" programs have more meaning and are harder to win than a lot of the rated ones. The efforts that are put into some of these award programs are quite remarkable, and everyone involved should be commended for their efforts.

Then it happened! Would you believe it, April Fool's Day and the inbox finally began to swell. I received some wonderful comments. "Great website," "Totally awesome" — I was amazed at the response I received. Suddenly I found myself welded to my PC. For two solid weeks I went mad and applied for everything.

I accelerated to 140 awards but still failed to achieve one of the World's Top Awards. Then, May 8th 2000, I received the cherry. "This is to inform you that treecity has won the 2112 F/X Creative Excellence Award," which is one of the World's Top Awards. I was absolutely over the moon and really couldn't believe it. I went straight to Don's site and submitted the application for his Superb! 100 Award. After nearly 3 years, I had finally achieved my goal!

Epilogue

I had promised myself that I would stop applying for awards after I had achieved the Superb! 100 Award. Since I was nearly at the 150 mark, however, and since I needed to set myself a new goal, I decided to go for the Superb! 200 Award. Miraculously, I achieved it on June 8th 2000.

While applying for all these awards, I realised that one of the best ways to improve my site was to ask people who had awarded me for their criticisms. This helped me a great deal. I asked Maggi Norris of Nem5 for some criticism after receiving two of her awards, and amazingly she asked me to join her judging staff. I jumped at the chance and I am now a proud F1 judge for her Level 5 and World's Top Award program.

At the time of writing this article, June 14th 2000, my site has won 6 of the World's Top Awards, 7 Level 5 awards, and it was on a shortlist of 10 sites for the Best Web Design Agency for the Yell UK Web Awards for the year 2000. Some people score my site 10 out of 10 while others have been known to give it 2. It's the 2's that keep me thinking.

Words of Wisdom

Always read the criteria and do what it says, to the letter. It's the most important piece of advice I have to offer potential award seekers. Ask for constructive criticism. Sometimes people will take the time to give it to you. This is when your site begins to win awards, when the judges or even friends and family give you constructive criticism. Take it on the chin and apply the advice where possible.

Try to be different and original and be prepared to completely scrap a site and start again. I must have done this at least four times. However, if you have a winning formula stick with it and don't become deflated when a particular person or award program tells you that your site is not up to the mark. It is probably just not up to their mark — different horses for different courses.

There are some awards that you may never win because your particular style will not impress everyone. Be persistent and focus on the goal. If you want something bad enough, you can and will achieve it. It has taken me nearly three years, and at times I felt like pulling my modem cable out of the wall. I didn't and now I find myself writing this article. Remember, also, that today's site will probably look very dated in a year's time. So be prepared to keep on updating your site and working on new ideas.

If you want a particular award for one reason or another, don't be scared to email the site directly and ask them for constructive criticism. You may be missing out by a small margin and they may be kind enough to give you some advice. Last but not least, remember there is more to life than winning awards. If you are capable of publishing a site on the Internet, this is an achievement in itself. And if you enjoy doing it, you will eventually win awards.

Acknowledgements

I have made a lot of friends along the way. Thank you Jim Armstrong of 2112 F/X for making it possible for me to reach my goal. A special thank you to Rhonda Serong of Otakou New Zealand Online for her words of encouragement, inspiration, guidance and of course those tellings off! Maggi Norris, Nem5, for taking me under her wing and for allowing me to judge some amazing sites. Tom Speer, Fortress Web Design, for his helpful criticisms and Jeff Clark, Internet Brothers, who has pushed my site to where it is now by constantly telling me, "more content!" I wouldn't be here without them.